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Alexander O. Anderson
|birth_place=Jefferson County, Tennessee (now Hamblen County, Tennessee) |death_date= |death_place=Knoxville, Tennessee |spouse= |relations = Joseph Anderson, father; James W. Deaderick, cousin |alma_mater = Washington College |profession=Politician, Lawyer, Judge }} Alexander Outlaw Anderson (November 10, 1794 May 23, 1869) was an American attorney who represented Tennessee in the United States Senate, and later served in the California State Senate, and on the California Supreme Court. Early life The son of Only Patience Outlaw and longtime U.S. Senator Joseph Anderson, he was born at his father's home, "Soldier's Rest," in Jefferson County (now Hamblen County), Tennessee. He was named for his grandfather, frontiersman Alexander Outlaw (1738–1826). As a youth he graduated from Washington College near Greeneville, Tennessee. He volunteered for service in the War of 1812 and fought under Andrew Jackson in the Battle of New Orleans in 1815. Later that year he was admitted to the bar and began a practice in Dandridge, Tennessee. In 1821, Jackson was appointed Territorial Governor of Florida, and Anderson the United States District Attorney of West Florida. Afterwards he moved to Knoxville, and then served as the superintendent of the United States General Land Office in Alabama in 1836. He was an agent in the Indian removals of 1838 for Alabama and Florida, and held a contract through 1848. Discussion of the contract status from 1843 to 1845. Senate and legal career In February 1840, Anderson was elected to the United States Senate by the Tennessee General Assembly to the vacancy caused by the resignation of Senator Hugh Lawson White. He was a member of the Whig party whose resignation was orchestrated by Governor James K. Polk so that a Democratic senator could be appointed. Anderson served in that body from February 26, 1840, to March 3, 1841, when the term expired. In May 1840, he was a delegate to the national Democratic Party convention in Baltimore, Maryland. Anderson did not stand for reelection to the seat; it was to remain vacant for a period when a group of Tennessee Democratic legislators called the "Immortal Thirteen" refused to meet and give a quorum sufficient to allow the election of a successor, apparently preferring no representation to that by a member of the other party, the Whigs. After leaving the Senate, Anderson remained active in politics. In September 1844, he published a series of letters on the admission of Texas as a new state, which were published as a book. In July 1847, he announced his support for Zachary Taylor of Louisiana as a candidate for President of the United States. Anderson was a leader of an overland company of leaving from Independence, Missouri, and going to California in 1849. He served in the California State Senate in 1852 as a Democrat. In February 1852, his name was put forward for U.S. Senator, but he lost the Democratic Party nomination. He then was appointed by Governor John Bigler as an associate justice on the California Supreme Court, serving from April 6, 1852, to January 2, 1853, before returning to Tennessee in 1853 or 1854. Anderson later practiced law in Washington, D.C., appearing before both the Court of Claims and the Supreme Court of the United States. During the American Civil War he returned to Alabama, practicing law in Mobile and Camden. Again returning to Tennessee, he died in Knoxville on May 23, 1869, and is buried in the Old Gray Cemetery. Personal life In 1821, he married Maria Hamilton in Washington, D.C., who died in 1825 in Jonesboro, Tennessee. On June 7, 1825, he remarried married to Eliza Rosa Deaderick, his cousin, and they had 11 children. She died October 15, 1866, in Knoxville, Tennessee. Footnotes References Retrieved on 2008-04-02 External links * * Alexander Anderson. California Supreme Court Historical Society. * Past & Present Justices. California State Courts. Retrieved July 19, 2017. See also * List of Justices of the Supreme Court of California * Hugh Murray * Solomon Heydenfeldt Category:1794 births Category:1869 deaths Category:People from Hamblen County, Tennessee Category:Tennessee Democrats Category:Democratic Party United States Senators Category:United States Senators from Tennessee Category:People of the California Gold Rush Category:California Democrats Category:California State Senators Category:California Supreme Court justices Category:U.S. state supreme court judges admitted to the practice of law by reading law Category:Tennessee lawyers Category:Alabama lawyers Category:Washington, D.C. lawyers Category:United States Army soldiers Category:People from Knoxville, Tennessee Category:People from Mobile, Alabama Category:People from Washington, D.C. Category:American people of the War of 1812 Category:People of Alabama in the American Civil War Category:Burials in Tennessee Category:United States Attorneys